


clockwork

by copperlily



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Oneshot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29658303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperlily/pseuds/copperlily
Summary: Viktor pauses to glance at him from over his shoulder, then turns back to his work. “Good evening.”Jayce blinks slowly, arching a quizzical brow. “It's a little late for that now," he comments, a teasing tone in his voice.Viktor tilts his head just slightly to the clock on the wall, eyes flickering over it briefly. “Ah,” A beat. "Good morning, then."A light huff of laughter escapes Jayce. He shakes his head clear of it. “Come back to bed?”
Relationships: Jayce/Viktor (League of Legends)
Kudos: 24





	clockwork

**Author's Note:**

> booyah baby first story in 3 years lets go lets dust off that rust

Jayce wakes up to an empty bed and a cold room. 

It is quiet, save for his own relaxed breaths and the steady tick of a clock, whose face—illuminated by the glimmering Piltover lights that filter through the window—reads at a quarter past three in the morning. He sighs deeply, closing his eyes again for just a moment. He doesn't want to get up, but he knows that Viktor will work until sunrise if he doesn't stop him. 

He's watching now as his fingers wander, tracing idle circles into the pillow under him. He'll get up in a second, but it'll be cold. Sharing a bed with Viktor means sleeping shirtless (what with the man being a veritable radiator) but the comfort of a warm bed is not exactly a comparable scenario to the steel and concrete of the basement workshop. He wonders—should he take the blanket with him? Wrap it around his shoulders like a cloak for his late night expedition? No, he decides, he doesn't want to have to make the bed when he comes back—he wants to be able to just toss Viktor (inevitably tired and likely grumpy) in and go right back to sleep. With another sigh he swings his legs out of the bed, using the momentum to carry himself forward instead of allowing himself more time to dither. 

Despite his tiredness, Jayce is confident in his destination. Viktor will be in the workshop, hunched over some invention or another, some development that struck him in the middle of the night that just couldn't wait till morning.  _ Now where have I heard this before? _ comes a dry thought, a small grin creeping onto his face. For all Viktor talks about change, Jayce thinks, there are some things that stay remarkably the same. 

One flight of stairs down to the first floor, then another to the basement. He lingers on the last step, just before the threshold to the workshop proper—if he can avoid the cold concrete tiling entirely, he’ll be glad for it. Here, Jayce stops to watch Viktor, if only for a moment. 

Viktor sits at a drawing table to the side, scratching away at a final blueprint to what looks like a redesign for the connective sensors of his prosthetics. There is a look of focus about him, in the furrow of his brow and occasional biting of the end of his pen—a habit he'd once tried to break but of which Jayce is secretly glad he'd never managed, finding the action quite endearing. His hair is spiked and messy, undoubtedly from him running a hand through it to push it out of his face. From here, Jayce can see his lips mouthing along to words spoken under his breath as he thinks, but the sounds are lost to the distance and the dim whirring of machinery. On the desk sits an abandoned cup of sweet milk, almost certainly forgotten. 

The scene is achingly familiar to him, not just in the time since they started living together again, but further back. He recalls countless times laying on a creaky dorm bed, eye cracking open to dim light smattering over his face. Viktor, whispering quietly to himself as he works to the flicker of a candle he's lit on the desk, not wanting to risk waking Jayce with anything brighter. 

Watching Viktor, Jayce feels a sort of substantial warmth that he can't quite put his finger on. It’s bone deep, resonating in his chest, thrumming through his heartbeat in a way that feels physical—almost tangible, even. Like he could hold it in his hands. 

His eyes soften, a fond smile quirking his lips as he pulls himself out of his thoughts. "Viktor," He calls out quietly. 

Viktor pauses to glance at him from over his shoulder, then turns back to his work. “Good evening.”

Jayce blinks slowly, arching a quizzical brow. “It's a little late for that now," he comments, a teasing tone in his voice. 

Viktor tilts his head just slightly to the clock on the wall, eyes flickering over it briefly. “Ah,” A beat. "Good morning, then."

A light huff of laughter escapes Jayce. He shakes his head clear of it. “Come back to bed?” 

“I’m working.”

Jayce crosses his arms and gives a terse, exasperated look. “You’re always working. You need  _ rest _ ," he asserts, firmly, but not unkindly.

Viktor taps the end of the pen to his lip, brow furrowing. “This is almost finished,” he says, trailing off into a mumble as he begins to write again.

Jayce rolls his eyes. “That's a lie and we both know it.” He waits a moment for Viktor's rebuttal and is met with silence, save for the light scratch of pen to paper. "Viktor?" he tries, but to no response—Viktor has taken to resolutely writing away, noting something down in his quick utilitarian script in the margins of the design. 

He softens, unfolding his arms and stepping off the last stair, crossing the distance to the worktable with a few long strides. The floor is as freezing to his bare feet as he’d expected, but he doesn’t let it deter him. Lightly, he places a hand on Viktor’s shoulder and gives a gentle squeeze. “ _ Viktor,” _ he tries again. Viktor idly touches his metallic fingers to Jayce’s hand, but continues to write. 

Jayce gives a dramatic sigh and leans into him, bare chest fitting snugly against Viktor’s back, warm in his embrace. Here, with his chin resting on Viktor’s shoulder, he can feel Viktor pause before relaxing just slightly into his touch. He reaches out to take the pen from Viktor's stilled hand, placing it lightly on the table.

“Come back to bed,” he insists softly, his lips just barely brushing over the warm skin of Viktor's jaw. Wordlessly, Viktor turns his palm upwards and Jayce responds in kind, matching the splay of Viktor's fingers with his own before twining their hands together. Viktor seems to consider this for a moment, thumb tracing small circles into the back of Jayce's hand. 

"I couldn't sleep," Viktor says finally. His voice is careful, quiet. Jayce turns and presses a slow kiss to the crook of Viktor’s neck. He can practically feel Viktor’s metered pulse under his lips, thrumming just below the surface. 

“Then just lay with me,” he says into that same spot on his neck, absently noting the way Viktor lets out a long, drawn out breath. Viktor closes his eyes and draws their still-intertwined hands towards him, pressing a kiss to Jayce’s curled knuckles in response. 

“Alright.” 

One quick peck to Viktor’s cheek and they’re standing up, Jayce pulling Viktor off the bench with a playful grin. Viktor rolls his eyes and gives a slight smile, and there’s that feeling again—that warmth in his chest, blooming, growing. There’s something Jayce wants to say, something on the tip of his tongue. 

Instead he blurts out:

“Can we get out of here? This place is fucking freezing.”

Viktor laughs, and they are on their way.

—

Jayce lays in bed and watches Viktor peel off the light shirt he'd been wearing, the faint Piltover lights in the distance glinting off the sharp lines and steel planes that make up almost the entire left of his body. The fluidity of the motion is mesmerizing, separate components somehow rigid and yet moving as a whole in tandem with the still-organic. The outline of Viktor’s silhouette glows with the window’s backlight, and Jayce is enraptured. 

He finds that he spends a lot of time doing this—watching Viktor. He always did, but now more than ever. Now, there is a sort of awe in his gaze, drinking in all the smallest details he sees, thinking to himself,  _ How lucky am I to have a second chance like this? _

This is not an uncommon thought for Jayce.

He and Viktor had spent a long time apart. Why wouldn’t they have? Things had gone poorly. Disastrously, in fact. It had taken a lot to even  _ begin _ to fix things (gods know they aren’t done) but it was a start—a start that Jayce can hardly believe happened, even now. 

Jayce is not one for dwelling on the could-have-been’s, but he knows himself, and he knows Viktor. Had either of them been a touch more callous, a touch less trusting—and perhaps a touch less nostalgic, too—he’s sure that both of them would have gone on their stubborn way, telling themselves they were content in never seeing each other again. 

It is because of this that he watches Viktor like he is committing each moment to memory. With every look is a promise to do better, with every gaze he tries to make up for the years spent separated by miles of steel and glass. No—Jayce would not waste this second chance. 

He tracks Viktor’s movements as he climbs into bed, springs squeaking slightly as the mattress dips beside him. Viktor catches his eyes and for a moment they lay there in the dark, just looking at each other. 

_ What did I do to deserve you? _

The thought rings in Jayce's mind—one of the few questions he does not know the answer to. 

Jayce breaks eye contact first, pressing himself closer to Viktor and laying his head down on Viktor's chest. He can hear a quiet humming, his elaborate inner workings whirring and clicking so close he can feel their pulse.  _ Tick, tick, tick.  _ Under him, the smooth metal plates shift in tandem with the steady rising and falling of Viktor’s chest.

"Trying to trap me here, are you?" Viktor says dryly.

"If that's what it takes to get you to take a break for once," Jayce bites back, all cheek. Then, after a pause, "... Do you want me to stop?"

_ Tick, tick, tick.  _

An amused smile pulls quietly at Viktor's lips. He draws a hand up Jayce's back, then loops his arm around him to pull him closer. Gently, he cards his fingers through Jayce's hair. "I never said anything of the sort," he says, tilting his head down to press a light kiss to the arch of Jayce's brow. 

Jayce gives a small smile and closes his eyes, catching the scent of worn metals and leathers, paper and ink and sharp copper notes that never quite wash away. With his hand, he traces a path along the scar lining Viktor's chest, following it to the slight ridge where metal meets flesh before laying it flat on the metal plating just over where his heart would be. 

_ Tick, tick, tick.  _

It’s warm. Warmer than Jayce had initially thought a man plated in metal would be, though looking back, he probably should have expected it. Viktor’s more intricate augments radiate a low heat from the energy it takes to run them—Jayce is reminded of the friction-heat of gearboxes, or perhaps the emanating warmth of his mercury hammer’s core. And while he jokes often about the apparent practical purposes of having a partner that doubles as a radiator, he does appreciate it on a more-than superficial level. 

What Jayce loves most about Viktor’s body is how uniquely  _ him _ it is—he can’t quite describe it any other way. He could probably pick Viktor out in a crowd of people without ever opening his eyes; by touch, by sound, by his just-this-side of unnaturally warm embrace—by the consistent rhythm of his breathing and the solid weight of his augments. His presence is tangible and real, so boldly  _ himself _ by merely existing. 

There is a particular kind of comfort Jayce takes from this tactile identity, from knowing with absolute certainty that Viktor lays beside him in bed. He'd worried, sometimes, that Viktor would leave. That he'd up and disappear back down to Zaun, a second chance slipped through his fingers—or perhaps that he'd never been there in the first place, the mad hallucinations of a regretful man. But when Jayce closes his eyes, he listens, he  _ feels— _ and it all melts away in Viktor's warmth and the gentle ticking of his heartbeat. 

An eye cracks open, faintly shining in the dark. “What are you thinking about?”

“How hot you are.”

Viktor snorts, and Jayce feels it resonate through Viktor's chest. “You’re impossible.”

Jayce laughs too. “You know you love me.”

_ Tick, tick, tick.  _

Viktor says nothing for a moment, trailing a hand up Jayce’s arm. He hums quietly. “I suppose I do.”

Jayce glances up at him, but Viktor is looking anywhere but his eyes. He smiles anyways.

_ Tick, tick, tick. _

"Love you too."

**Author's Note:**

> yeehaw all of that stemmed from the [talks at length abt. viktor's body heat + how comforted jayce feels by that in like a soft mushy way] ["what are you thinking about" / "how hot you are"] joke at the end there, and all of THAT came from a picture i saw of a kitten sleeping on top of a charging block to keep warm 
> 
> Also: a massive thank you to my dearest beta reader Khanyi for putting up with me despite having not a single clue what's going on with League. I gift to you my entire heart


End file.
